Question and Answer Websites – Get Free Traffic By Helping People

Where can I get free targeted traffic to my website? This is the question almost every website owner asks. Especially the ones that have newly built websites with little or no visitors. There are many paid and unpaid techniques that could drive thousands of visitors every day and every month, but are you certain that most of that traffic is targeted and people will be interested in what you have to say or what you are offering to buy? That’s why targeted traffic is so important. It provides a higher chance to sell your product.

Actually, finding targeted audience that would be interested in your content and your product is not as difficult as it may sound. There are places where people are asking for what you are offering. Yes, I am talking about Question and Answer websites where everyone is looking for some kind of help. Websites like Yahoo Answers, Quora or StackExchange have millions of visitors who are looking for an expert who could help solve their problems.

You can be that expert and you can use your expertise to direct those visitors to your website!

Q&A websites could be a big part of your marketing strategy which will help you to:

Drive targeted traffic to your website

Position yourself as an industry expert

Build your personal or company brand

Increase your link building

Build relationship with other experts

Find new topics to blog about

Let’s get started! Choosing the best website for you

Quality over quantity. There are many good Q&A websites with lots of visitors looking for answers. Don’t try to be everywhere! It is impossible to participate in all communities equally. It could take hours to answer all questions. And, if you’ll be jumping from one platform to another leaving your answers a little bit here and there, then you will not be building any authority. It is better to choose one or two communities and be as active as possible, so that after some time people would recognize you. Every time they see your name and avatar they should be sure your answer will help them.
Below is a list of some of the most popular Question and Answer websites. Make sure you investigate them carefully and choose the one that is best suited to you:

Yahoo Answers – one of the leading Q&A websites in the market. Millions of users are engaging on this site. Because of the large audience lots of junk posts and spam are left every day, but after some time you will get used to and will be able to recognize which topics are worth your time. Yahoo Answers platform is based on point system. As a member, you get points of every answer you provide. The better your answer the more points you get. When you collect a certain amount of points, you get promoted to higher level account. Every level has additional privileges to help you become even more recognizable.

Quora – another very large Q&A website. It was launched in 2010 by two former Facebook employees and since then is growing rapidly and becoming a leader in the niche. Unlike Yahoo Answer this network has managed to keep the platform free of spam. In Quora, people will never create anything they don’t need to. It is probably the most active and most professional question and answer website available. Many well-known experts from different niches are participating here. I even wrote a separate article about Quora marketing.

StackExchange – also very powerful Q&A platform. According to the statistics in 2014, StachExchange had over 3.8 million registered users. Today, it has over 130 categories that are separated into different communities. Topics range from mathematics to finance and travel. However, the largest part of this community is concentrated more in technology-related problems.

Make sure you’ll explore each one of them very carefully. Choose only the best suited websites which has most activity related to your niche.

Joining and preparing

After choosing and registering to the most suitable Q&A websites, make sure you fill out your profile. Usually, it does not require much information, so fill everything you are asked for. Use your personal name and photo, if you are branding yourself as a person, or you could provide you brand name and logo, if you are promoting your company. Make sure you include a link to your website in the “About you” section.

Once the profile is completed, you should investigate chosen websites one more time. First of all, learn the rules. Find out which answers get most votes and what style of writing dominates. You need to adapt to every website in order to receive maximum results. Also, make a list of posts that are depreciated and what kind of posts are considered a spam.
Finally, choose categories in each Question and Answer websites that you are going to participate in and subscribe to them.

You are ready now. It’s time to get some free traffic!

This marketing strategy should become your daily task. You should set yourself a rule to provide at least one answer per day on every Question and Answer website.

In order to get a maximum result from this strategy you have to stand out. People should recognize you as experienced and intelligent person. Whenever you write an answer, make sure you are leaving as insightful post as possible. After reading your comment, it should be clear that no other answers are needed.

However, you should leave some space for further reading from other sources. Leave some points unanswered and link to your website for additional reading. This way, if readers are interested in your post on Q&A website then they will definitely continue reading the additional information on your blog. But make sure your comment is really good and intriguing enough to attract those visitors to your website.

By constantly providing help to people, soon you will get recognized. You will be building trust and readers will vote for your insightful answers. Every vote will lift your response higher in the line. The higher you get, the more visible you are. Also, it is important to remember that Question and Answer sites are liked by Google, so many question get ranked high in the search engine. Some questions are getting loads of additional traffic from search engines and this is another reason why you want to be nominated as the best answer. Because top answers are always read most. Here is a list of tips you should keep in order to successfully participate in Q&A websites to get free traffic:

Don’t spam. Your main objective is to provide insightful answers and attract readers to visit your website for additional information. Don’t just jump into every question leaving links everywhere. Readers hate that and soon you will get banned.

Only respond to questions that you really know the answer to. Don’t try to be an expert on every topic. Choose only questions you are really good at. Otherwise you are risking to damage your reputation.

Choose questions related to you niche. This should be obvious to everyone. If the question is not related to your niche, then you will not be able to leave a link to your website for additional information.

Give quality and unique answers. You have an opportunity to solve a potential customer’s problem. The better your answer is the more votes and credits you will get. This could develop into free traffic to your website and brand recognition as an expert.

Include links to your website only if it helps answer the question. Don’t leave links under every answer no matter if it is related to the topic or not. People don’t like that and soon you might be considered as a spammer.

Show you have come to contribute. Don’t always look only for questions that you can answer by linking to your own website. If you see a good question just answer it. Show readers that you are here not only to promote yourself.

Engage with people. Build relationship with other Q&A website visitors by upvoting best answers, following most engaging people and asking questions by yourself.

Participate regularly. If you are committed to get free traffic by helping people on Q&A websites, then make sure you are be able to participate on a daily basis. Contribute at least 30-60 minutes a day to answer a couple of questions. That way you will always remind about yourself. Otherwise, people will forget you and your brand building process will fail.

Try to answer as many questions as possible each day without losing the quality. The more you comment, the more visible you will be. More answers mean higher chance to be selected as the best answer and even indexed by search engines.

These are the basic rules that should help you drive free traffic to your website through Question and Answer websites more effectively. However, the best results will come when you’ll find your own techniques and style of participation. I always encourage people to experiment and create their own strategy because doing everything by someone’s rules might make you feel uncomfortable and reach less effective results.